Alan Caruba's blog is a daily look at events, personalities, and issues from an independent point of view. Copyright, Alan Caruba, 2015. With attribution, posts may be shared. A permission request is welcome. Email acaruba@aol.com.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

It's All Bad News for ObamaCare

By Alan
Caruba

On Wednesday,
March 4, the Supreme Court will hear the King v. Burwell case. It is likely to
deliver a death blow to ObamaCare when the decision is announced in a few
months. About the only good thing ObamaCare demonstrated is that the federal
government should be kept from taking over sectors of the nation’s economy that
are working just fine without it.

Health
care expert Edmund Haislmaier and legal expert, both of The Heritage
Foundation, provided an explanation of the case. “The question before the Supreme
Court is whether the Obama administration overstepped its authority in issuing
an IRS ruling that conflicts with the ObamaCare statute. The statute allows
payment of ObamaCare subsidies only to individuals who obtain coverage ‘through
an Exchange established by (a) State.’”

ObamaCare
got such a cold reception nationwide that 34 States refused to set up an
exchange, forcing the feds to do it. Those exchanges distributed subsidies to
individuals participating in them, but the ObamaCare statute “seemingly did not
authorize subsidies in such cases.” Suffice to say that ObamaCare health
insurance is considerably more costly than what one could have previously
purchased on one’s own; thus the need for the subsidies gambit.

The
February edition of Health Care News, published by The Heartland Institute was
filled with articles attesting to the failure of ObamaCare. Here are a few
excerpts from them.

Devon M.
Herrick, Ph.D., a health economist and senior fellow at the National Center for
Policy Analysis, noted “Obama touts the claim (that) millions more people are
now covered under health care insurance policies through employer plans.
However, research has shown exchange subsidies will cause employers to drop
coverage…Mandatory benefits are not free; workers bear the cost in the form of
lower wages.”

Dr.
Herrick added, “Obama said (in his State of the Union speech that) ‘in the past
year alone about ten million uninsured Americans finally gained the security of
health coverage,’ but he neglected to mention roughly 6 million were coverage
through Medicaid expansion and many of them were finding it difficult to find
doctors willing to work for the paltry fees state Medicaid programs pay doctors
for treatment.”

An article
by Matthew Glans, a Heartland senior policy analyst, noted that “The Health and
Welfare Committee of the Tennessee Senate voted on February 5 to reject a bill
that would have allowed Gov. Bill Haslam to expanded Medicare under the Affordable
Care Act.”

Kenneth
Artz reported that “A new study by the Office of Inspector General for the
Department of Health and Human Services found half of all providers listed in
Medicaid managed-care plans are not available to new Medicaid patients, either
because they are not at the listed location or aren’t accepting new Medicaid
patients.” Feeling ill? “For doctors who are accepting new Medicaid patients,
the average wait time to get an appointment is two weeks, with close to 25% of patient
having waits of one month or longer.”

Tom
Steward, writing for the Minnesota Bureau of Watchdog.org, contributed to
Health Care News noted that “In a significant victory for religious liberty and
economic freedom, the American Manufacturing Company received a permanent
federal exemption from provisions of the Affordable Care Act that contradict
the owner’s religious convictions.”

Sean
Parnell, the managing editor of Health Care News, reported that “Rhode Island
officials predicted up to 100,000 residents would use the state-created
exchange established under the Affordable Care Act to buy health insurance in
2014. Data from the state show only 27,961 people enrolled during the 2014 open-enrollment
period, a number that declined throughout the year as many enrollees failed to
pay their first premium or later dropped coverage.”

ObamaCare
is on critical care because it could die at any time. Not surprisingly, three
Republicans, John Kline, Paul Ryan, and Fred Upton, chairmen respectively of
the House Committee on Education and Workforce, Ways and Means, and Energy and
Commerce, have put together a plan to address the likelihood that the Supreme
Court decision will put an end to ObamaCare.

As they
said in a recent Wall Street Journal commentary, “If the court rules against
the administration, as any fair reading of the law would demand, millions of
individuals and families will hit a major roadblock. They’ll be stuck with
health insurance designed by Washington, D.C., that they can’t afford.”

“What we
propose is the off-ramp out of ObamaCare toward patient-centered health care.
It has two parts: First, make insurance more affordable by ending Washington
mandates and giving choice back to the states, individuals and families. And,
second, support Americans in purchasing the coverage of their choosing.”

What a
unique idea! Let people choose the health care plan they want and that they can
afford. That’s the way it used to be before the Affordable Care Act was passed
entirely by Democrat votes because the GOP would not support it. That’s why
Congress is controlled by the GOP these days. And that’s why this nation will
return to the free marketplace.

About Me

I am and have been for a long time a writer by profession. I have several books to my credit and my daily column, "Warning Signs", is disseminated on many Internet news and opinion websites, as well as blogs. In addition, I am a longtime book reviewer and have a blog offering a monthly report on new fiction and non-fiction.